And my drawer of finished pieces that need to be taken care of (I know, I'm awful. They're just tossed in a drawer. That's on my list of things to remedy.

And then there's the drawer of kits - these are smalls that are all together and ready to walk out the door on a trip or whatever:

Next is a drawer of q-snaps:

And finally my drawer of odd fabrics like afghans, aida, etc.

Now on to the flossies - I bought a wonderful old card catalog and have never finished setting it up for use. I have all my beads in the bottom, and the top is for floss.

I finally sorted floss and labeled drawers:

After all this sorting, I got to have some happy dances - I'm not sure if they're considered STRIP dances or not but they were projects that just needed a couple of minutes to finish off and I'd never gotten around to it.

First - an herbal garden sampler in silk that needed the bee charm sewn on (4 seconds)

Next, a birth sampler where dad gave me the wrong date and even tho I put the name where the chart said to I didn't like the placement - the first name seemed too high. So I moved the first name down a couple of stitches and changed the date. 10 minutes.

And then the birth sampler thingie that I worked on for our godchild - needed the date put on it. 2 min.

And last night I put the hardware on Aer but didn't get a picture - it needs a good iron first.

Monday, August 29, 2005

What a weekend!

All day Sunday I worked in the "studio". This is where we have our desks - my husband's built in desk for his writing and my table and cabinets for my beads and cross stitch. I busted my butt.

First, I sorted. I put my cross stitch charts in one pile, my SANQ in another pile, the magazines that I actually NEED in another pile, and all the beading stuff in another pile. I put the magazines back in the wood cubes and piled a ton of them in the "sell" basket. Then I organized my charts by designer in a plastic rolling bin. (I'll post pics tomorrow to show off).

Then, I sorted my fabric by count - 28 in the top drawer, 32 in the lower drawer.

Next I sorted finished pieces from WIPs. That was the top drawer of plastic cabinet #2. Second drawer I sorted out the LoRan cards and the misc. bits that I use when kitting projects. Third drawer became WIPs.

Next set of drawers. I put all my kits that are ready to go in the top drawer, organized my qsnaps in the second drawer, and put all the odd fabrics like afghans and aida in the bottom drawer.

I went thru my WIPs that I had floating around. I finished the birth sampler for Emilee (just needed to put on the date) and the birth sampler for Rachel (needed to move her name down some and fix the date cause dad gave me the wrong one) and put the bee charm on another piece that was ready to go. So all those are finished. Happy dances!

I have to get silk to finish Oroborus (spelled that wrong I know) and I have to chart YULE for Celtic Christmas and those are done. That will finish up all my "bits and pieces" left over!

Then I moved on to threads. I organized the threads in my card catalog cabinet, and put labels on the drawers. And I went thru and put them all in the thread book I keep. And I did my DMC in the threadbeds and in the boxes for my extra full skeins. Tonight I'll do the cut bits since I use Loran for my projects.

Friday, August 26, 2005

Trying to get back in the swing

I've been very scattered lately. I haven't been rotating, just working on one thing at a time pretty much. But now that I don't stitch at work, I'm getting bored.

Currently in progress:

Egyptian Garden by Chatelaine - Maybe 25% done. I love this piece, but have been working on it exclusively for over a month.

Dragonlets Birth Sampler - 65% done - I need to finish this one soon, but it's so BORING that I hate working on it.

Celestial Dragon - 40% done - all the border is done and the over 1 but the dragon is just started. And I can only work on him for a short time before I get sick of the blending filament and want to throw it across the room.

Now, what I want to start:

The Token by Longdog - I have all materials for this in hand.

Footprints by TW - I have promised one of my dear friends (who came to Nashville with me) that I would stitch this for her. Considering I did Cottage Garden Fairy for my other friend for a housewarming and I've known J. for longer, I really owe her this.

Angel Procession by TW - I have promised my mom I'd do this for her and I should start soon.

Midi I - I'm still gathering materials for this so won't start it until probably after the first of the year.

Tropical Dream by TW - I've got the chart and the fabric.

Soo - I'm thinking I'll start Token for when I'm traveling in September, then start AP in December. Maybe start Footprints in Nov? If I give myself one new start per month until I have all these going, is that too much???

Also, my beading has fallen by the wayside. With all my travel coming up I won't be beading much - it's too hard to drag around. And altho I love it, I'm just not sure that I love it as much as stitching. I go back and forth I guess. Anyway, I've got a show in September and hope to sell some stuff and make some money there, which may motivate me to bead again. Until then, and after making 50 pr of earrings, I am burned out.

Thursday, August 25, 2005

I am so going to get killed

Today on lunch my friend Becky and I went to the downtown mall for lunch with her DH. We had some extra time, and I had mentioned that I needed to shop for pants this weekend to take on my work trips. So we went to Gap. I spent over $200 at the Gap. I applied for (and got) a Gap card since that took 10% off my total. Now, I did get 5 pairs of pants and 3 shirts, so it really isn't THAT much. And I need pants since none of my summer pants seem to fit anymore and I can't really crawl around on the floor hooking up computers in a dress. I hope he's not too mad.

I'm going to make my appointment today

My birth control pills have caused a tumor on my liver known as focal nodular hyperplasia (http://www.emedicine.com/radio/topic286.htm). My doctors want me off birth control now. Since my DH and I have discussed having children and decided that we probably will not have any "natural" children, I've decided to have laproscopic tubal ligation. I'm too chicken to go with an IUD and I don't trust most other "barrier" methods of birth control. My insurance covers my tubal, but not DH's vasectomy. So, I'm going to make the appointment today. Recovery is not supposed to be bad, we'll just have to wait and see.

Sigh. This is hard. This is a "forever" decision, and I never like those. I know in my heart if I want kids I can adopt, but it's still hard to close a door and board it up.

Monday, August 22, 2005

Picture post

OK - here are the stitchers - Now, I'm awful at names, especially when I meet this many people at once, so I hope somebody can identify everyone :)

Starting in the lower left: Gwena Lynne, Heather Lott, 1Terry (to the right and behind Heather), Pat (Annette's mom), Erin, Suzemo, Stasha, Cris. Directly behind Heather in the next row is Autumn, Dianne, Cheryl, WG, Wendy, Sally. The row behind Autumn is Ginny (please forgive me for not remembering right away & w/help from Annette on remembering), Kate, Annette (to the right and down below Kate), Dana (to the right and below Annette), medievelneedle (to the right and behind Dana), Renee (to the right and behind medievelneedle), Kari (in front of Renee), and Rob (Wendy's husband)

I decided to start a blog....

I just came home from Nashville CATS yesterday and I decided it's time for me to have a stitching blog. It seems that most of the others I met at the show have one, and since I do a lot of posting on LiveJournal as friends only nobody else can read it. Plus, nobody there really gives a hoot about my stitching.

I'll post my pictures from CATS in a bit. I need to get them loaded from my camera first.